‘Big Brother Canada’ in review: Three things that should change for season 2

Don’t think of the title as a negative: As we begin to wrap up our “Big Brother Canada” coverage for the year, we come here to praise the show rather than to bury it. It was an entertaining season almost throughout, and even if you hate the way things ended, it’s hard to deny that the show’s first venture north of the border was more entertaining at times than many recent seasons of the American show (at least 12 and 13).

But every first-year show has things to improve upon, and when you tried as many different things as this show did, there will be some things that inevitably need tweaking. We applaud them for taking risks, though, since so much of it worked. The cast was dynamic and interesting, most of the competitions were inspired, and even the returning houseguest twist from the jury won us over since Gary making it to the final two created such a surprising way to close the season.

Note that season 2 has not been ordered yet, but we believe its odds are strong considering the ratings.

The three things that should change for season 2

1. No surprises that hurt the game’s integrity – Specifically, we’re talking about Topaz’s instant-eviction deliberation, which is really the only huge twist in the game that was seriously problematic. If there is one thing in this game that should remain sacred, it is the ability to vocalize what’s on your mind without is being unexpectedly broadcast for everyone to hear. This marked the beginning of the end for Topaz’s run on the show, and an ending that really will live on in infamy.

2. Fewer surprise evictions – If we could have fewer double-evictions / instant evictions, we’d be happy with fourteen people rather than fifteen. A double-eviction is interesting if there is maybe one or two of them a season, but this season it was much worse than that. If you include the first eviction of Kat along with the instant eviction and even the PowerShift that put Aneal on the block, there were really five times in this game when someone went home (whether it is Kat, Aneal, Liza, AJ, or Topaz) without really much of an opportunity to fight for their survival.

3. Live tapings – After being in the audience for the finale, we understand why none of the episodes this year were live. It’s a technical nightmare, especially if there is a snafu somewhere behind the scenes. However, isn’t there a way to work this out? Despite pleas by the show for people to keep the finale a secret, someone almost always spoils it and the winner was all over Twitter hours before the episode aired. Part of the suspense of the show is watching live and not knowing what will happen during the show. We had that feeling attending the taping and it was wonderful. It also reminded us how much we’ve missed it all season long.

If there is an honorable mention here, it would be to have more strategists late in the game, but that is more of a function of what happens in the season. This show did have people in Aneal, Liza, Alec, and Peter who were big-time gamers, but they were all gone before the final four. Emmett’s dominance is the big reason why since he wanted to ensure he had as much control as he could over the game. Meanwhile, the fact that Jillian would have lost to a returning player had Topaz voted correctly shows that there were holes in her strategy. We’re not trying to sandbag Jillian, as she did many things right. Her only major flaw was just not owning up to her lying in the way that many great players have done in the past.

Want more of our “Big Brother Canada” finale coverage? Be sure to check out our interviews with Peter as well as Gary, and we’re going to have some more coverage moving through the end of the weekend.